


indifference will kill you

by jemejem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Fic Exchange, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Fortune Telling, M/M, Mild Gore, Necromancy, Soulmates, light stabbing, like very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21771619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemejem/pseuds/jemejem
Summary: to a young man who's just spent two years undoing his late father's garish spells and rituals, staying in a small town and settling isn't really an option, and neither is opening up to a soulmate.to a young man who's been manning a divination shop for a few years, fervently protecting his little town, a dangerous stranger is the last thing he needs, and neither is a soulmate who he can't trust.really, it's like they're made for each other.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 27
Kudos: 382





	indifference will kill you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [actualgrantaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualgrantaire/gifts).



Along Perimeter Drive were various little shopfronts that kept the town alive and bustling. They defined Palmetto as what it was: a mysterious little haven, amongst holly bushes and Cornish walls. 

Andrew would’ve liked to have lived here all his life. He was, unfortunately, more used to tragedy than most would ever be exposed to, even at his youthful age. His maternal figure would caress the shell of his ear when he awoke, sweating, in the middle of the night, murmuring her prayers for the injustices he’d outlived, but he’d still lived them. 

He didn’t live with Betsy anymore, though they still ate dinner together every evening after he closed the shop. She lived above Dobson Divination in a tiny apartment the two of them had shared throughout Andrew’s rowdy teenage moments and his seer apprenticeship. 

Now, instead, he lived in a tiny cottage on the edge of town, atop of Palmetto hill and overlooking his tiny sphere of existence. It wasn’t much: a bedroom, a living, kitchen, dining and study combined, and a tiny little bathroom. He was small, too. It was more than beneficial. 

The bell rung as the door to his mother’s shop swung open, heralding another customer. This one wore a friendly face, her placid smiles and thin brows revealing nothing of her dangerous capabilities that lurked beneath the surface. 

Renee Walker was the only necromancer Andrew had ever come across, and probably _would_ ever come across, seeing as the art was long dead (hah) and she had detached herself from the cult-like gatherings that went alongside the practise. Necromancers were very insular, she said. It’d be almost unheard of for anyone else to abdicate like she did, especially considering the art ran in families. 

“Morning,” she said softly, sweetly. Her basket held various things she’d gathered in the early morning light—wind-swept pansies and sweetgrass and cicada shells, collected in a shallow stone bowl. From under her gatherings she withdrew a letter. “I thought it was pertinent that you saw this.”

He took the paper from her hands. As soon as his fingers brushed across the parchment, pain lanced through his forehead: his eyes screwed shut as his fingers curled back, immediately absorbed by a different reality. 

His visions were often triggered by touch. 

There was a lot of noise. Wind. Leaves turning brown, falling from their branches. Unknown silhouettes, unfamiliar tracks in the mud. Knife blades of gold and silver, eyes of sapphire and emerald, hair of ruby and onyx. Fire and ink. Andrew recoiled into his chair as the sensations of old scars rippled across his skin. Phantom pains—no, someone else’s pains—burst like jasmine sap under his skin.

“Andrew,” Renee called, when he’d stilled. She was still holding the letter. “Are you alright?”

“Who’s letter is that,” he snapped, standing up. 

She calmly walked back to the door of the shop, flipping the sign from open to closed. “Wymack’s son. Kevin Day. You would’ve met him before, when you were younger. He was here often after his mother died.”

Andrew remembered Kevin from when he tagged along to find Aaron. That wasn’t the troubling part. “Who else?”

Renee sighed, put upon. “According to Wymack, his cousin is coming too. A distant relative—I think perhaps Kayleigh’s cousin’s son—but a relative all the same. What did you see?”

Andrew tasted sawdust at the back of his throat. “Change. Everything is going to change.”

*

Neil disliked small towns for their inevitable nosiness, but magical towns were undeniably worse. Hopefully they were just botanists, or artists, or something along such harmless lines. He didn’t feel like facing trouble when he’d just narrowly escaped his father’s clutches. 

“Don’t get lost in your head,” Kevin muttered, elbowing Neil in his side. Neil scowled, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He was already here against his wishes, Kevin demanding company, but the fact that the taxi couldn’t take them straight to Palmetto only furthered his irritation. 

Apparently the alleys were too narrow for cars to fit through, the residents too frail for noise pollution. Neil figured it was just old people with excuses against modernity, but there was nothing he could do about it: when the taxi inevitably pulled to a stop, he would follow Kevin out and trudge the extra half-hour to the town’s centre. 

Neil wasn’t even looking forward to seeing David Wymack, a kind-hearted but gruff soul who had always ruffled Neil’s hair as a kid when he’d visited after Kevin’s mother died and he was sent to Palmetto. That’d been a _long_ time ago: he doubted Wymack would recognise him if Kevin hadn’t sent a pre-emptive letter. 

All he could see when they exited the car (with the cab driver asking whether or not they were sure they were in the right place probably three times) were tall hedges and even taller pines. Neil brushed himself off and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat as Kevin checked the small map Wymack had sent in the mail. 

“Through here,” he advised, gesturing towards a small, nearly unnoticeable divot in the thicket. Kevin pushed through and flicked a branch back, letting it hit Neil in the face as he followed. 

On the other side was a small hut, a dark-wood cottage with stables attached to the easterly side. On the porch were two figures with skin as dark as the oaken eaves, smiles brilliant. 

“Kevin,” the woman said. “It’s good to see you.” 

Neil watched, entranced, as Kevin willingly walked over to give the tall woman a hug. She wore long, golden earrings and kept her hair tied up in a floral bandana. She turned to Neil and smiled: he could see earnestness in her eye, and when they shook hands, it was clear she was a strong woman, both in her pilgrim-styled occult abilities and her manner. 

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she insisted. “I’m Dan Wilds, Kevin’s sister.”

“Sister,” Neil repeated. 

She laughed. “Wymack adopted me when I was twelve or so.”

“This is Neil Hatford,” Kevin said pointedly, giving Neil another shove in the ribs. “Don’t bother explaining your roles or magic to him. He already knows.”

She arched an eyebrow. Neil flushed. 

“I can read souls,” he mumbled, shrugging. It was the easiest way to explain his capabilities. Easier than explaining he’d refined his unique ability of seeing one’s past when evading his father. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she said, still earnest. “This is Matthew Boyd. My partner.”

“Howdy!” The man was stupidly tall, with hair spiked skyward. He was the one who owned the wards that Neil and Kevin were about to walk through, which probably protected the entirety of the town. When he shook Neil’s hand, Neil saw a tumultuous past, like Dan’s and Kevin’s and his own. Maybe Wymack collected troubled sorcerers. 

“Do you need a horse or two?” Dan inquired. “It’ll be a half hour walk into town otherwise. You can deposit them at Wymack’s inn and we’ll collect them at the end of the day when we come down for dinner.”

“Sounds good,” Kevin nodded, giving his sister a gentle squeeze around the wrist. Neil had never seen Kevin so placid around someone before. He decided that he quite liked Dan. 

His horse was calm and sturdy when Neil clambered onto its back: Dan said his name was Wayfarer, and that Neil would never be lost when at his seat. He nodded, bid the patrons of Palmetto’s entrance goodbye, and set off towards town. 

Kevin was much more familiar with riding horses than Neil was, but Wayfarer made it simple, even as they cantered down the dirt road. It took no longer than ten minutes, which had Neil windswept with his heart racing, fingers gripping the reigns till his knuckles were white. 

Wymack was already waiting for them outside the inn when they arrived: Neil slipped off his horse with less grace than his cousin, simply because he was that much shorter. It was unfair that the Hatfords seemed to luck out in the height department whilst the Days maintained 6-foot statures, but that was just the way the cookie crumbled. 

“Welcome back, Kevin,” Wymack huffed, accepting Kevin’s one-armed hug. 

“Hi, Dad.” Kevin muttered, still pink-cheeked whenever he called Wymack his _dad._ For half his life he hadn’t known that truth, and sometimes it was something you couldn’t get used to.

“Neil,” Wymack nodded, ruffling his hair. 

Neil ducked out the way, stifling a grin. “Coach.”

He jerked his head back towards his inn. “Come in for a drink: Abby’s anxious to see you both. She’s been working non-stop in the apotheca, now that we’ve opened another entrance to the town.”

“You mean we didn’t have to ride in to town?” Neil demanded, still a little stiff as they tied up the horses. Wayfarer nudged his shoulder with its nose, almost apologetic. Neil soothed the horse with a scratch under its chin. 

“If you’d entered via the tourists’ arch, you wouldn’t see the town for what it truly is,” Wymack advised. “Matt worked long and hard to balance it properly, to keep us safe but keep business steady.”

“Smart,” Kevin acknowledged, which was incredibly high praise. “How is Perimeter Drive?”

“Well, Abby’s running the apotheca on her own now that Aaron’s booked it to the big city with his wife. Renee’s still coveting the bookstore and runs a flower stall in the Sunday markets. Allison’s always bitching about being overrun with seamstress work and Nicky and Seth aren’t at each other’s throats anymore, so the garden nursery is going well. I have the inn and Dobson’s—“

“Kevin!” Abby called out, smiling warmly. “And is that Neil? My goodness, you’ve grown!” 

Neil had to laugh as Abby smothered him with a warm hug. Her hands cupped his jaw, thumbs brushing over the scars that curved over his cheeks. Her smile faltered just a little, but she still kissed his forehead, more motherly than his mother had ever been. 

Mary kept Neil locked up in a little Rapunzel-esque tower when his father had scorned the two of them, hiding away in the big city. The only people he was allowed to see were Kevin and Kayleigh. When Mary had died almost a decade ago—when Neil and Kevin were 14 and 16 respectively—Wymack and Abby had been perfectly welcoming of Kevin’s twitchy little cousin. Neil hadn’t stayed for long, not with the drama with his father, but Abby had made her mark. 

“How was your trip?” Abby said, breaking Neil away from his train of thought and dragging him over to the nearest table, shoving a plate of food into his hands. It was still hot. 

Their inane chatter filled the strange quiet in Neil’s chest. He thought coming back to Palmetto would be all heartache and foul memories, his mother’s ghost looming over his shoulder and the strange sensation of watching someone’s family from the outside. 

For now, though, the hearth and the familiar honey oak ceilings and red ochre ceramic plates was enough to fill his time. 

*

It was the dead of night when Andrew awoke in a cold sweat. This had been happening more often than not since Renee had shown Andrew the letter a few weeks ago, but the visitors had arrived today. No one had needed to tell him: he just knew. 

Within five minutes he’d pulled on his coat and boots and locked the cottage’s front door behind him, trundling through his front garden. Nicky had insisted on styling the place for him, with plenty of plants that smelled fresh and grew without complaints or maintenance. It was a little overgrown after a few months but Andrew couldn’t say he didn’t like it. They stems of a fur fern seemed to curl after him as he passed, curious about where he was off to in the middle of the night. 

He tucked his nose under his scarf and shuffled his way down the dirt road, an approximate 8 minute walk to Perimeter drive. This late in the night the street lanterns were out, leaving everything in perfect darkness. A stray cat jumped from one thatched roof to another, blacker then the night sky with glowing eyes. 

Andrew was a seer, not superstitious. The cat knew this and jumped down, curling around Andrew’s ankles before trotting off. Andrew liked cats. They were very decisive. 

It was only a little further still when he arrived at Dobson Divination, but an unfamiliar figure drew him to a stop outside Renee’s bookstore. Whoever it was had their fingertips on the small sign that Betsy had long ago enchanted to show people what they wanted to see. 

For Andrew it had long remained blank. For some, it mentioned Andrew’s ability to predict their soulmate. For others, it was tarot readings and tea leaves. For a limited few it was advertising Andrew’s ability to predict death and illness. 

Whoever was stood outside was obviously entranced by whatever it said, fingers tracing the letters slowly. Andrew thought he could see a _y_ and an _o,_ a _u, a, r, e,_ maybe an _i_ or an _L,_ an _o, n, e,_ maybe another _y._

He stayed back, observing the stranger. Without getting up close it was impossible to divine the details, whether or not this was the man Kevin had brought along, whether or not this person was dangerous, why he was stood here in the moonlight. 

The man looked over his shoulder, eyes like two blue flames. Sapphires and rubies. Somehow he’d known Andrew was stood there in the shadows, and whatever he saw he decidedly did not like, disappearing within a fraction of a second. Andrew’s heart-rate spiked suddenly, skin itchy. He wanted a scrying bowl, or a cup of oolong. He wanted the stranger’s palm, upturned under the moonlight. Andrew hated surprises, hated the unknown, and that was what the man was: a stranger, in a town where Andrew knew every brick and weed.

He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck and swivelled on his heel, retreating the way he came. Behind him, the man watched from the shadows, noting the way his blonde hair shone silver in the moonlight, his short stature, the way that his hazel eyes had entertained nothing but loathing for a man that was nothing but secrets and lies. 

If Andrew had bothered to look—which he never had, because the sign had never shown anything before—he would’ve seen the letters scramble and unscramble, spelling out a small message. 

_keep an open eye: he is more than you could hope for._

*

Neil awoke late with a strange fogginess making everything bleary and unknown. He stumbled to the bathroom for a cold shower and a glass of water to satisfy his parched throat, before dressing and crossing the hallway to Kevin’s room. 

They were staying above the pub in Wymack’s spare attic rooms, out of the way of the inn’s other patrons. Neil was relieved: he didn’t like deal with strangers on a regular basis, but those who’d come to stay in the town as vacationers were somehow even less ideal. 

Kevin was less of a morning person than Neil was and opened the door, angered at being awoken earlier than 11 o’clock. His hair was mussed and his clothing askew, but he was too sleepy to stop Neil from shouldering his way into Kevin’s room and flopping onto Kevin’s bed. 

“What do you want?” The man demanded, though it sounded more like “wahdyawant?”, half skewed with a yawn. 

“Dobson Divination,” Neil inquired. “How long has that been around?”

“Betsy’s always offered her seer abilities, but they only set up shop a few years ago.” Kevin yawned, stumbling into his little bathroom to splash water over his face. 

“They,” Neil repeated, rolling onto his stomach. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“Her son, Andrew. You’ve met Aaron, haven’t you? That’s his twin.”

“Why the hell isn’t she Aaron’s mother too, then?”

Kevin made an unintelligible noise. “They only found out about each other when they were older, I guess. Aaron and Nicky moved into town, lived and worked in the inn. Aaron’s fucked off to the big city with his wife, Katelyn. Nicky’s living with his boyfriend on a farm on the other side of the creek. Pretty sure Andrew has his own place on the hill.”

“How haven’t I heard about any of this?” Neil remarked. 

Kevin came back into the room, throwing his t-shirt into the washing basket and filing through his bag for something else to wear and tugging it over his head. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed it: you’ve been kinda off the planet for the past few years.”

Neil grunted, flopping back against the pillows. Ten minutes later Kevin nudged him to get up for breakfast. They ate quietly, Kevin reading a new dissertation on Irish heresy as Wymack sipped on his coffee. 

  
Neil excused himself and readied to go outside, pulling a woollen hat over his ears with the sudden chill that’d swept through the town. Apparently it was going to snow, according to Betsy, who was just as good at predicting the weather as she was at reading into someone’s mind. That was what freaked Neil out about her, ever since he’d first met her years ago. 

He found himself walking towards Dobson Divination anyway, like someone had twine tied around his heart and was yanking him closer. Maybe it was that little sign that read _you are lonely._ Maybe it was the man in the shadows, with silvery hair and his desire to protect so potent Neil had been able to smell it from across the street. 

It was open: Neil could see figures milling around inside. The sign now read _you’ll never stray too far from home once you find it_ , which was just as vague and frustrating as the message last night had been. 

Bells rung as he pushed the door inwards, stepping through. Incense was warm on his skin and fresh flowers decorated every shelf. There were knickknacks of every kind, homely clutter that was all for sale. 

“You can’t give me a less vague answer?” The customer demanded, sitting anxiously upon a stool in front of a central desk. In front of her were various tools, tarot cards and normal playing cards and flipped coins and thyme. “I want to know if he’s my soulmate.”

“You’ve come to me, uncertain,” the man returned, distinctly unimpressed. “Isn’t that enough of an answer?”

The woman huffed, slapping down a twenty and standing up from her stool. “I knew this was all bullocks.” She shook her head at Neil as she stormed out of the shop, the little bell ringing once more. 

Neil finally looked at the man—now that he could see him in the daylight, and knew his name—and found it impossible to look away. His hair was like honey in the firelight, his eyes gold and green and cocoa. Neil could sense scars, on his soul, on his skin. The twine around his heart pulled a little tighter. 

“Hello,” Andrew said, expectantly. “I figured you would come back.”

“You’re a seer,” Neil mumbled, dumbly. Of course he was a seer: he was sitting behind a desk in a shop called _Dobson Divination,_ doling out advice about soulmates and inner truths. 

“And you’re a stranger,” Andrew acknowledged. Neil felt that feeling again, of being isolated, looking through a window at a family, a world, a town that he would never be a part of. “Well? Sit down.”

Neil sat reluctantly, watching as Andrew bustled around, fingers brushing over the mahogany desk, the remnants of the previous woman’s fortune telling. When his fingers brushed over the cards, she smelled stoic and impatient. A little sour. 

Neil wanted to shake Andrew’s hand, or at least brush fingers: he needed—no, _wanted—_ to know more about this man. This whole shop reeked of possibility, but for whom?

When Andrew sat down, he shoved the woman’s things out of the way and settled down a small, shallow bowl: its surface was mirror-like, the water within rippling and disturbed. 

Suddenly, Neil’s stomach twisted.

“I don’t—“ Neil grit his teeth. “I don’t want a fortune.”

“Congratulations,” Andrew returned. “I’m not giving you one.” 

“Then what—“ Neil furrowed his brow. “You’re scouring me? Why?”

“Because you’re a stranger,” Andrew reiterated, wetting his fingertips. “I don’t like strangers. Especially ones who wander around at night, as though they’re canvasing.”

“I’m just a nobody.”

“Of course,” Andrew agreed. “But you’re still here in my town, and I take my promises seriously. If you have nothing to hide, why worry?”

Neil gulped. He _did_ have things to hide. If Andrew saw who his father was, if Andrew saw the things Neil did to stay alive, if Andrew saw the scars under his shirt—

_It’s fine,_ he reminded himself. _You’re alive. He’s dead. You’re not staying for long. What gives if Andrew knows? Kevin knows, Wymack knows, Abby does too—_

Their fingertips brushed. Immediately, Neil yanked back his hand as a spark of electricity—visible and vibrant—crackled between their skin. Andrew had retreated too, brows furrowed and hand to his forehead. 

All Neil could see, smell, taste, feel was Andrew. His warmth and his strength, cloves and cinnamon and rosemary. Death, too. Stale anxieties. He was all jagged edges and all Neil could sense was that they’d fit perfectly into Neil’s jagged absences. 

_Soulmate,_ his mind echoed. _Soulmate. Soulmate. Soulmate._

“Andrew,” Neil murmured, curling his shaking hands in the wool of his scarf. “Are you alright?”

Slowly, carefully, Andrew looked back at him. 

“Get out.” 

Neil didn’t stick around to see what’d happen if he didn’t. 

*

He’d been pacing grooves into the carpets after shutting the store early and clambering up to his mother’s loft. She sat patiently on her favourite futon with a cup of earl grey, looking at him knowingly. A normal parent would perhaps ask him what the hell was wrong, but she would already know. 

A soulmate. 

_Seriously?_

Andrew made a living off soulmates: it was easy to see who belonged with whom. Soulmates weren’t definitive or uniform things, either. Souls were more attracted to some souls rather than others. That made sense to Andrew. Prescribing a monogamous, ‘eternity’ sort of ordeal to it sort of made sense too, seeing as soulmate’s souls would usually change and evolve at the same pace too. 

But Andrew had always assume he had no soulmate. That he had no soul to begin with. The void wherein an identity should form was instead filled with his capacity to read and interpret other’s souls, a gift and a curse. Betsy, of course, disagreed, but she hadn’t found a soulmate either. It was just the life of a seer. 

“I don’t know who he is,” Andrew began. 

“So get to know him,” Betsy returned, calmly. 

Andrew made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t _want_ a soulmate. I don’t _want_ to get to know him. He appeared in a waking vision: surely that’s a warning. Visions are mechanisms of preemptive survival, not a live-feed into one’s dating life.”

“Andrew,” Betsy scolded. “Contain yourself before you break something.”

Andrew glanced around, pausing his pacing. Many things on her old shelves had shifted as tremors shook the room. Her row of glass figurines that she had collected since before she’d adopted Andrew had shuffled out of line. Andrew curled his hands into fists and tried to breathe properly, but it got caught somewhere in the sticky, humid confines of his lungs. 

“What if it’s not true?” 

Betsy stood and put her hands carefully on his shoulders, rubbing circles. 

“Souls don’t lie,” she reminded him. “People do, but souls do not. Trust yourself, Andrew.” 

Weakly, he nodded. 

*

“For Salem’s sake,” Kevin snapped. “What is it _now?”_

Neil flipped him off, curled into a ball in the corner of his bay window. Kevin had stormed the room, discussing plans for the evening, only to find that his cousin wasn’t listening whatsoever, and instead was moping, staring melancholically out the window. 

“Is Thea your soulmate?” Neil asked before he could stop himself. He didn’t want Kevin to think he was getting all tied up—let alone _distracted_ —by soulmates. Of all things. His mother had always warned him against them. They lured you in, broke you down, took your power and your skills and left you in the dust. Neil had always been alone—alone, or with his mother. He couldn’t comprehend his soul ever wanted to pair up with another. 

“Obviously,” Kevin said petulantly. “Andrew paired us up.”

Somehow (it was a miracle, truly) Neil kept a straight face. “Who is this ‘Andrew’?”

“You’ve never met him?” Kevin crossed the room to sit on the other half of the bay window’s ledge, though he was much larger and couldn’t copy Neil’s stance. They would do this as kids, when Kayleigh and Mary would fight over things—Kayleigh leaving the safety of Palmetto with Kevin, Mary avoiding her bloodthirsty ex-husband, how the hell one was meant to raise a child alone in this crazy world. Kayleigh died when Neil was only 6, and the only time he’d ever seen Kevin cry was when they were cramped into Abby’s old wardrobe, hiding away from the world. 

“Never,” Neil lied. 

“Betsy Dobson—don’t tell me you don’t know her, I was there when you met her—adopted a boy when he was maybe 13, 14. I met him a few months after he’d arrived here. By then he and Betsy had figured out all his visions of him standing in mirrors meant he had a twin, so I tagged along when they went to find him. It was all a bit contrived and dramatic, but eventually their mother died and the twin—Aaron, who became Abby’s apprentice—“

Neil remembered seeing Aaron last time he’d been in Palmetto, right before Mary died. They were meant to stay the night and Mary had been bleeding out, lying on Abby’s apothecary bench, but then Aaron asked one too many questions and Mary tugged Neil by the wrist, stomping out of the town. 

The curse Nathan had half-finished was completed only two weeks later, seeing as Abby hadn’t had the time to remove what he’d started. Neil had watched as his mother died in fiery agony, before turning on his heel and breaking all of his mother’s archaic rules, appearing at Kevin’s door. 

“—and Andrew’s cousin. Nicky. I’m sure he’ll make himself known to you soon: he loves fresh meat.”

“Fresh meat—?” Neil attempted to inquire.

“Andrew’s a seer.” Kevin continued, cutting over him. “He’s really good. Dad was saying earlier, when you missed lunch—“

“Sorry,” Neil muttered. 

“— that they needed to open up a tourist route into Palmetto, just because of how well-known he’s becoming in the area. They come for all sorts of things, but if there’s something he’s good at, it’s soulmates.”

“What, he just picks them out of a crowd?”

Kevin shrugged. “Basically. He’s never been wrong before. Abby and Dad only got together because he knocked their heads together and told them to get a clue. He found Nicky’s boyfriend and Aaron’s wife. He told Allison to kick Seth to the curb and get with Renee—though maybe that was more wing-man, less seer—and so far everything is just as he’s predicted it’d be. And he found Thea.”

Thea Muldani was a talented sorcerer, a naturalist of sorts, who’d been passing through Palmetto as many occultists did. At the time, Kevin had been in a frantic search for Neil who had vanished off the face of the earth when his father had finally caught up to him and snatched him away. Thea had helped him track Neil down and retrieve him, keeping Kevin relatively sane in the process. In the two years that he and Neil had been travelling around together, her letters had been the only things that made him smile. 

She was kind of a bitch. Neil really liked her. 

“Why do you ask?” Kevin finally inquired, poking Neil’s shin with his toe. “Do you want a soulmate? He could definitely find you one. I know you’ve said you don’t want one—“

“I don’t.” Neil insisted. 

Kevin shrugged. “Sometimes things are better with soulmates. You can be united. Stronger. Your powers and natures will compliment each other, and you can help pull each other back. Ask him about it. I’m no seer.”

Neil would rather brand himself with a hand of glory than go back to ask Andrew for advice, so he shrugged noncommittally and said “Sure.” 

Kevin assumed Neil’s strange mood was appeased and launched into his original topic of discussion. Neil let it go through one ear and out the other, still contemplating the whole situation. 

Was there protocol for something like this? What the hell was he supposed to do with a soulmate, now that he knew he had one—and now that he knew who it was? What was he supposed to do with a soulmate who apparently hated him, and had sent him away immediately? 

He had no idea. Fate would figure things out, eventually. It always did. 

*

“Pros?” Renee prodded. “Cons?” 

She was currently sitting in a tree branch above Andrew, who laid on the picnic blanket underneath the old chestnut tree. 

Andrew glared at her. 

“It’s a new situation,” she suggested. “Why don’t you approach it like you approach any other new situation? Break it down, sort it out, figure out what to do next.” When he grunted, she smiled. “Alright. What are some bad things about this situation?”

“He’s a stranger,” Andrew said immediately. “Untried and untrue. His whole soul is encompassed in so many layers—he’s a _liar._ Plus, I’ve known Kevin for years and he’s never even mentioned him. He might try and take advantage of the ‘bond’. He could be here to kill me—I certainly sensed a lot of death around him.”

“Right, of course,” Renee allowed. “Now, what about some good things?” 

Andrew chewed his lip, uneasiness growing in his chest. 

“Here’s an easy one: He’s proof that you absolutely have a soul, Andrew.”

He flipped her off. 

She just grinned. “What about: he’s interesting? Perplexing? You’ve always said that people are needlessly simplistic. He seemed cautious—you said he asked if you were alright. And he’s a blood relative of Kevin, of whom you already trust, and so you could probably ask Kevin about him now that he’s back in town. What else?”

Andrew mumbled something under his breath. Renee leaned forward with an arched eyebrow. He huffed petulantly, repeating himself: “He’s hot.”

His best friend snorted, leaning back till she almost fell off the tree branch. Andrew’s heart swooped: she always did this to him, but had never fallen, always hanging by her knees and looking to Andrew with a knowing smile. 

“Andrew,” she said. “You just have to make a leap of faith.” 

He simply scowled and threw a chestnut at her. 

*

Abby blinked at him repeatedly, holding a bunch of dried sage tied with twine. Somewhere she had a honey candle melting: the scented wax was soft and drifted freely. 

“You want me to sever your ability to have a soulmate.”

Neil nodded, perched on the edge of her bench with his ankles crossed. The shop was different every time he’d come here, which meant he didn’t see his mother on her death bed whenever he picked up a random jar of snail shells. 

“I know there are charms for it,” he said when she continued to stare at him. “I’ve seen them.”

“Neil, that’s not something that can be reversed.” She frowned. “What brought this on?”

“Oh, just…” he shrugged evasively. “It’s not something I’m interested in. Didn’t want anyone getting disappointed.”

“Neil,” she continued, leaning against the bed. “Soulmates aren’t bad. They’re _good._ They’re perfectly matched to be your equal. I don’t think severing your ability to find one is a good idea—“

His fingers curled in the thin paper sheet that covered the leather cushion he sat on. “It’s what I want.”

“Alright,” she managed, still perplexed. “I’ll look into it, okay?”

Neil nodded gratefully and hopped off her bench, crossing over to shove his way out of the apotheca. 

Outside, midday business was just cooling off. An odd dozen still milled around, looking into the curious shop fronts and cooing over the gimmicky seance toys. One couple were taking photographs with roses they’d just bought from Hemmick’s.

Neil attempted to walk the opposite direction, attempted to head back to the inn instead, but found himself walking towards Dobson Divination once more. There was an invisible thread pulling on his wrist, pulling him towards inevitability. 

Neil could understand Andrew’s reluctance. He was a scarred nobody, who’d appeared in his town with nothing more than a ghost over his shoulder. He was a liability, a leaf about to fall from its branch. 

The shop was closed, the little sign hanging on the inside of the glass stating it was always closed on Mondays. Still, Neil could see someone walking around inside. When he saw who it was he almost turned on his heel and ran the other direction, but she’d already spotted him and waved. 

She unlocked the door for him and let him inside, leading him up the stairs to her little apartment. Betsy Dobson wasn’t someone whose hospitality you could refuse. She had grey hairs throughout her frantic curls, her caramel skin warm and wrinkled with age. It was impossible to tell how old she was: she’d always looked like that. 

“Last time I saw you was when you came after Mary passed.” Almost a decade ago, now. “How are you, Neil?”

“Fine,” he managed, trying to build up the mental walls that meant she wouldn’t be able to peer into his life and thoughts. “Just visiting.”

She popped the kettle on, throwing open the kitchen window. From the second floor, all of Perimeter Drive was keenly visible. It was a peaceful place. “You sure?”

“What do you mean?”

She simply smiled. “You and Kevin were travelling together, yes? Two years is a long time. Surely you’ll want to settle somewhere, right?”

She knew he’d been running around for much longer than that. And he wouldn’t call ‘returning the bodies and stolen artefacts his father had used for his twisted rituals to their rightful places’ travelling. “Maybe Kevin does. We haven’t spoken about it.”

“I’m sure he and Thea will be married soon. Weddings are always so cheerful, don’t you think?”

Neil had no opinion on weddings, whatsoever. He simply shrugged and avoided her inquisitive gaze. 

She poured them both cinnamon chai tea and settled on the plush sofa opposite him, leaning forward onto her elbows, looking at him. 

“Don’t do that,” he snapped, standing up and moving over to the open window. 

“Do what?” She inquired. 

“Read me. Don’t. I don’t need you knowing what’s in my head and trying to fix it. I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are.” She whistled gently. A finch arrived on the windowsill that Neil stood behind, head cocked curiously. “Follow this bird, Neil. Maybe you’ll find what you’ve been looking for.” 

It flew off, but Neil could still see it perched on a street lamp, outside Dobson Divination. He sighed, put down his tea and vowed to never put up with the seer’s antics again as he let himself out of her little apartment to follow the curious finch. 

*

Renee had long since returned home to Allison, who was always stirring trouble. Andrew had instead taken his favourite stroll down to the hidden pearl of Palmetto, the glass-like lake that was so still it was almost a perfect mirror. He and Betsy had done many of their clairvoyance things here, the energy of the riverbanks teeming with life and possibility. There was a small, eclectic collection of wooden planks that created a small boardwalk around the east side that Andrew laid back across, gazing up at the clouds. 

The sky was painted with pinks and purples as the sun began to set, the amalgamation of colours introducing the stars with fanfare. Andrew remembered being unable to see the stars in the big city as a child, unwanted and discarded and mistreated, forever clinging onto the possibility that there was something more for him. 

Betsy had rescued him just in time. He’d had visions of his next foster home, of another young man who would definitely take more than he was allowed, like so many had before him. 

His entire body went rigid as someone stepped on a twig close by. 

“Oh,” came a soft voice, a voice Andrew had been aching to hear but actively avoiding. He opened his eyes and tilted his head up, looking at the red curls that cascaded over his ears, his forehead. He stayed back, almost shy, scarred fingers curled into the soft material of his sweater. 

Andrew looked back to the sky. “Well?”

Neil Hatford sat down slowly, a measured distance between them. He had a little bird perched on his finger: Andrew sighed. 

“Bee sent you here.”

“How’d you know?”

“She likes finches.”

Neil hummed, his fingertips stroking over the little bird’s head. It chirped. “I’ve met her before, but not you. Why?”

Andrew shrugged. “Good timing.”

The bird flew off now that its job was done, so Neil buried his hands into his lap. 

Andrew couldn’t help his intrepid curiosity. “Who did all that to you?” 

“My father,” Neil mumbled, tucking a curl behind his ear. “He died two years ago.”

Andrew felt something in his chest. Rage. Relief. He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do with it, either. “Good.”  


Neil glanced to him. “Your mother. You killed her.”

Andrew looked back to the sky. “Didn’t you hear? She died in a car accident.”

“That you rigged.” Neil drew his knees up into a ball, resting his chin on them. “I can see the past. There’s no point in lying about it.”

“And I can see the future,” Andrew pointed out. “I could say the same thing.”

Neil’s smile was a little lopsided. “Of course.”

“Humour me: if I tell you a truth, will you give me one of your own?”

He looked to Andrew with his sapphire eyes. “What’s in it for me?”

Andrew shrugged, putting his hands behind his head. The constellations were slowly becoming clearer. It would be a nice night. “An opportunity to be a real person?”

He snorted at that, but willingly laid down beside Andrew, mirroring his stance. For a few moments, all was quiet. 

“Why did you tell me to leave?” Neil murmured.

“Why didn’t you stay?” Andrew shot back.

He could hear Neil’s frown. “I asked you first.”

“And I answered. We all have our instinctive reactions, don’t we?”

Neil tilted his head to look at Andrew, of which Andrew ignored, instead focusing on how Neil laid his hand by his hip, facing upwards and fist loose. He could intertwine their fingers together. He wanted to. He’d never wanted something so distinctly, but all he could hear, see, feel when he heard the name _Neil Hatford_ was complete understanding. 

“Stop looking at me,” Andrew said. “You’ll miss a shooting star.”

Obediently, Neil looked away. If Andrew was a hypocrite—which he wasn’t—he’d turn to see if Neil was smiling. 

He kept his gaze upon Sirius instead, waiting for his fate to unfold in front of him in the stars. 

*

Neil woke up late: it’d been a long night, gazing starward for endless hours at Andrew’s side. He couldn’t help but feel secure and safe, seeing as the man could see the future and whatever threats Neil would face. 

Kevin hadn’t even barged into his room in the inn to get him up, so he woke up slowly, pulling himself out of bed and showering, dressing, yawning and making his bed with the speed of an elderly snail. By the time he shuffled down to the pub’s kitchen, it was lunchtime, and the smell of Wymack’s cooking was enough to perk him up a little. 

He didn’t think anyone would be around on a random Tuesday but Wymack and Kevin were sitting at a round table with papers and books spread around them. Neil sat down, bewildered. 

“Nice of you to finally show up,” Kevin remarked, glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he looked over something on old parchment. 

“The hell is all this?” Neil demanded, picking up a book. “Best Pine For Wooden Flooring. Kevin, the fuck?”

“Language,” Wymack huffed, sipping on his coffee. 

Kevin looked up at Neil. “I’m helping extend Renee’s bookstore into a cafe: she’s wanted to run a bakery for a while now, and Thea and I will archive and run the bookstore in her stead. Later on we’ll start a teaching program for apprenticeships in various forms of occultism, but the bookstore is the first step.”

Neil blinked. “Since when?”

Kevin arched an eyebrow. “I have established that this was the plan various times, you idiot. Why do you think we came back here?”

Neil looked down to the table, feeling mildly thick-skulled. There had been more truth to Betsy’s words yesterday than he’d given credit for, and it was suddenly all shifting around him in a disturbing, fractured mess. He didn’t want to be alone again. He _couldn’t_ be alone again. 

“I suppose I’ll have to figure something out, then,” he muttered. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kevin stated factually, going back to whatever he was reading. Probably good luck charms for establishing a new settlement. “We’re archiving. You will be able to run a clairvoyant business from the bookstore and help us out with fact checking. Or maybe you can fit in with Dobson Divination, if Andrew likes you enough. Your skills would be invaluable there.”

Neil rolled his lips into his mouth and stared into his mug, the brown liquid taunting his foolishness. 

He’d never had a home before. He couldn’t just do a 180 and settle, not without something to help tether him down. 

“I’m going to see Abby,” he announced, ten minutes later. His coffee had gone cold and he hadn’t eaten anything in probably 16 hours, but he wasn’t hungry. He grabbed his coat from the hook by the door and ignored Wymack’s curious gaze, keeping his head bowed. 

*

“I met your boy,” Betsy said, over the lip of her mug. Andrew paused his crocheting—he was trying to figure out if Mrs Wallace’s cat was going to come home to her, and the wool would reveal the truth if he crocheted it in the midday sun. He was still sitting against her window, letting the sun rays shine through onto his hands, calloused palms and stubby fingers. 

“He’s not my boy.”

“He’s your soulmate, Andrew.”

“You can’t _own_ someone.”  


Betsy just shook her head, smiling. “You can give yourself to someone, Andrew.”

Andrew tied the knot in his crocheted square and squinted at it. It clearly showed a cat underneath a signpost that directed towards _home._ He sighed with relief: he didn’t feel like telling the old woman that her cat had abandoned her. The half-hour break he’d given himself from manning the shop was almost over. 

“He’s still dangerous,” Andrew said, voice low. 

“So are you.” 

He sighed. His mother was infallible. 

Trotting back down the stairs, he immediately flipped the sign on the door back around and let the next customer wander in. She was tall, wearing heeled boots and a lofty smile. Her hair was blood red, an ugly, artificial shade. Nothing like the auburn tones of Neil’s curls. Andrew really needed to get his mind of Neil Hatford. 

“What can I do for you?” He asked flatly, perching on the stool behind his desk. He wasn’t exactly known for his customer service. 

“I’m looking for someone,” she said, lightly. “I was wondering if you might be able to help locate him for me.” She carefully put down something shrivelled, dried: it looked as though it was a piece of preserved skin. On it was half an emblem, a branding of sorts, but it was too disfigured for Andrew to figure it out. The woman was wearing gloves: when he looked up at her, her smile went thin. 

“That is a chunk of someone’s skin,” he suggested. 

“Self inflicted.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “He’s always been a little off his rocker, and when he vanished two years ago, I feared for his life. But the police just haven’t found anything: I thought maybe you could help.” Her cherry-red lipstick bled into the wrinkles around her mouth from her maniac grin. 

Andrew immediately disliked this woman, but he picked up the piece of skin anyway. 

Its effect was immediate. There was something very wrong with the owner of the artifact: they were in pain. Andrew saw darkness and bloodied knives and a hand of glory, candle-wicks shoved into the fingertips and the fat melting like wax when the wicks were lit. A voice—maybe the woman’s, maybe someone else’s—calling _Nathaniel, Nathaniel. Junior. Wesninski Junior. Where are you, Nathaniel?_

Andrew dropped the skin like it burned him, recoiling his hand. “Nathaniel Wesninski?”

“My step-son,” she insisted. “His father died—I’m sure that’s why he vanished—and I really want him to come home. I miss him dearly; I lost both of my boys within a week.” 

Andrew best saw things when he was touching something directly, but he didn’t want to touch the flesh chunk she’d brought him again, putting it into a plastic bag and stuffing it into a drawer. She handed him a wad of cash—it was definitely generous—and he nodded. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. Her smile was beseeching. 

“Be careful with that,” she said. “It’s all I have left of him.” 

With that she spun on her heel and marched out of his shop, leaving behind an aura of perfume and definitive maliciousness. 

He was going to find this Nathaniel Wesninski and tell him to run the other way. If he couldn’t do that, the least he could do was burn the skin to ash and dump it into the river. Nauseated, he took his seat once more, and waited for the next customer to come along. 

*

At the exact same time that Andrew was handling Nathaniel Wesninski’s skin, Neil Hatford was waiting patiently for Abby’s verdict. 

She pulled out a book and dropped it into Neil’s lap, letting it fall open onto the right page. Neil immediately recoiled, seeing the wrought-iron brandings and distinctively shaped cuts. 

“Do you understand why?” Abby said, hands on her hips. “Why I don’t want to?”

“Why is it so gruesome?”

“All soul magic is gruesome, Neil. It’s disconnecting a part of yourself, forcefully. I really think you should reconsider this.”

“What else can I do?” He demanded.

“You could talk to me?” She insisted, settling down beside him and taking away the book. “Neil, I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but you can trust us here. You can talk to me.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, because she didn’t. The only one who knew was Kevin, and even he didn’t know the full story. 

He knew Nathan had killed his mother. He didn’t know that the Wesninskis were necromancers, and that Neil and his mother were scorned because she didn’t produce him a necromancer heir. He knew that Nathan was now dead, but he didn’t know that some of his clan were very much alive and in hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike. 

How the hell could Abby possibly stomach that? The things Neil’s father did were beyond comprehension. They were dastardly in every sense of the word, and Neil hated him. Neil wished he could have killed him himself.

There was no way he could let someone else into his life like that. Andrew was—well, Neil had seen glimpses of Andrew’s life, the abandonment and the neglect and the night terrors that were born out of a deep-seated trauma, but even then it wasn’t right for Neil to involve Andrew. Even if they hated each other, which Neil was beginning to suspect that Andrew genuinely did, Neil wouldn’t want to push his troubles onto anyone. 

Neil barely had enough unmarred skin for Abby to even perform the severing ritual: his Wesninski branding had been half sliced off by his mother before they’d left when he was four or five, the misshapen lump still on his shoulder in all its glory. He didn’t really want another branding, but what else could he do?

There was a sharp pain in his shoulder, underneath the scarred remains of the Wesninski branding. It was a phantom pain that yanked him back into reality: his fingers immediately itched to press against it, to soothe it, but if Abby noticed she’d ask to look. The branding was definitely too disfigured to be recognisable, but any branding was suspicious anyway. 

“Neil,” Abby said, holding out her arm gingerly and laying it across his shoulders. He let himself lean into her side as she rested her head on top of his. “Won’t you tell me what happened?”

Neil remembered when his mother would hold him close as a child. Whisper protections into his hair. Hold him so tight he couldn’t breathe. 

All Neil could manage with the throbbing pain in his shoulder was “I’m fine.”

*

The next time Andrew saw Neil, something was off. Something was wrong. There were always multidimensional elements to the young man, but this was something diifferent: Neil was hiding something. Not just from everyone. From _Andrew._

It was a Sunday evening, when many gathered in Wymack’s inn for dinner. Everyone Andrew could name was there barring his brother, even Boyd and Wilds. They’d snatched Neil up and squirrelled him away into a corner to talk, where he was slowly warming up to their friendly conversation. 

Andrew narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t figure it out, which he detested. Renee kept trying to rope him into quiet conversation, of which he pushed off in favour of glaring in Neil’s general direction. 

Once, Neil glanced over. There was something complex and unknowable in his gaze. Andrew’s chest ached. 

They all had dinner and mulled wine and sung along to a charmed jukebox and danced around in front of the fireplace as Andrew withdrew himself more and more, a recluse in the shadows. 

It was late when he noticed Neil’s absence. Swiftly he extracted himself in search of him, because—well, he didn’t know why, really. His curiosity over Neil was maddening. 

In the end, he found him in the bathroom. He opened the door as quietly as he could, only to find Neil with his shirt half unbuttoned, shoulder pulled down to reveal pink-toned scars. He was looking at one in the mirror, a distinct patch on his shoulder, with a disfigured branding not completely sliced off despite one’s best efforts. 

Andrew’s stomach lurched. It couldn’t be. Fate wouldn’t be that cruel. 

Neil swore when he noticed Andrew standing by the door, tugging his shirt back up and turning away to do up his buttons. 

Andrew let the silence persist only for a little longer, asking “What’s wrong with it?”

Neil glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “Phantom pains.”

_Who_ are _you,_ Andrew wanted to ask. Instead, he pulled up the sleeves of his armbands, of which he always wore. Beneath it were thin scratches that he’d laid into himself, when all he could hear or see was his doomed future. It was an attempt at control. A poor attempt, but an attempt nonetheless. 

Neil reached out but when Andrew stepped back he paused, fingers curling into his sleeve. 

“Why?” Neil asked.

Andrew didn’t really know, so he simply said: “You don’t have to hide yourself around me.”

“I thought you hated me,” Neil mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. 

“I do.” And it wasn’t a lie. Neil’s existence made indifference impossible. It made apathy unattainable. Andrew had never been so captivated by someone in such a short span of time: it was ridiculous. Terrifying. 

“Okay,” Neil said, looking at him through his rouged eyelashes. 

_I don’t trust you,_ Andrew wanted to say but couldn’t. _Who branded you,_ he wanted to ask, but didn’t. _I want to kiss you,_ he thought, but knew he shouldn’t. 

So he just said: “Come to the shop tomorrow.”

There was a world of questions behind Neil’s eyes, but all he said was, “Alright.”

*

Neil felt his shoulders unfurl as he smelled the cloves and cinnamon, stepping through the precipice of Dobson Divination. The sign outside today said _the unknown isn’t always scary,_ still infuriatingly vague, still a load of horseshit. 

Andrew was frowning at a small step ladder with a hanging plant in one hand, the other curled into a tight fist. His jaw was pulled taut, and even if Neil was mildly concerned about Andrew’s seemingly apprehensive position, Neil could still recognise the sharp jawline that fed down to a prominent tendon. He was muscular. 

“Andrew?”

Andrew’s gaze snapped to him, like he hadn’t noticed Neil come in. Immediately he shoved the plant into Neil’s hands, muttering, “I’m too short,” and leaving Neil to hang it instead. 

He climbed the ladder easily: he was still just short of the hook, but if he hopped a little bit, he could get it on. The step ladder skidded a little. 

A hand grabbed onto his waist. “Are you fucking insane?”

Neil looked down to where Andrew’s fingers were wound tight in the waistband of his jeans, steadying him. He cocked an eyebrow at Andrew. “You thought I was going to fall or something?”

“Stop being stupid and get down,” Andrew snapped, but still didn’t let go as Neil clambered down the ladder. Withdrawing his hand meant that his fingers brushed the skin of Neil’s hip, a scar looping over his hipbone. 

Neil watched as Andrew’s eyes fluttered shut, lips parted. He didn’t move, not as Andrew’s brows drew together, teeth grinding with vengeance. 

A vision, Neil realised. Andrew was getting a vision. 

Carefully, Neil took Andrew’s hand, and hissed: his skin was burning hot and distorted pictures of Lola Malcom flashed across Neil’s peripheral. But how? Andrew couldn’t know who Lola was. If he knew Lola then he would know of Nathan and he’d figure out the truth about Neil and—

“Hide,” Andrew managed, voice strained. “Neil, _hide.”_

Neil let himself be pushed under Andrew’s desk, receiving a knee to the cheekbone for his efforts: he pushed his fingertips to the bruised scarring, just as the door to the shop swung open. 

When he heard her voice, it was like an elbow to his chest: he was breathless, his entire body gone cold with horror. 

“Morning.” 

“Morning,” Andrew returned, decidedly displeased. “What do you want?”

“Just an update,” she said breezily. “I don’t lend out my possessions lightheartedly, Dobson.”

“These sorts of things take time. It’s safe.”

“I’d like to see it.” 

“It’s not available.”

“I would like to see it, please,” she insisted, not polite in the slightest. “Or I’ll rescind my payment.”

Andrew made a disgruntled sound and crouched down, taking out a keychain and unlocking the bottom draw. Whilst lowered, he pushed a finger against Neil’s lips to shush him. Neil didn’t need to be kept quiet: he could hardly breathe as it was. 

From the locker drawer he drew out a glass jar, screwed tight. Inside, a gruesome thing was on a bed of sage and rosemary, and from the jar’s lid grew a salt crystal. Neil had seen something like this before: the salt would form a distinct pattern and give a clue as to where the owner of the specific object was. 

Neil almost let a strangled gasp escape as he saw what it was: the patch of his skin his mother had scalped off him when they’d left after Neil’s birthday. It bore the Wesninski branding and was shrivelled with time, even if it was very well preserved. Neil was definitely going to throw up. 

“If I open the jar, it’ll set back the process.” Andrew told Lola. “Satisfied?"

“Very much so,” she returned. “Keep it secure.”

“Don’t tell me how to run my business, ma’am.”

She laughed, pearlescent and shrill. “You truly are a piece of work, aren’t you?” With that, her heels tapped across the wooden floor and out the door, the little bell signifying her absence. 

Neil sucked in a gasp of air, fingers scrambling for purchase. He felt someone pulling him to his feet, sitting him down in a tall-back leather chair. He was dizzy with fear, his entire body shaking. 

“Neil,” _Nathaniel!_ “Neil, look at me.” _Junior, your Daddy’s very excited to see you again. It’s been so long._ “Neil.”

Neil blinked owlishly, looking up into Andrew’s golden eyes. Something very clear formed in his mind and he was out of the chair instantly. 

_“You,”_ he snarled. “You brought her here!”

“I did not,” Andrew said flatly. 

“You’re helping her find me! What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do you know who she is? She’s trying to _kill me!”_

“Neil, you need to breathe.”

“I knew it. I knew this was a bad idea. I need to go to Abby, I need to leave, I should never have trusted anyone—“

“I didn’t know.”

Neil blinked, looking at Andrew. He was looking at the jar, hand over the lid. 

“I didn’t know who Nathaniel Wesninski is. I didn’t know it was you.”

“It’s not me,” he managed, voice nothing more than a croak. “I am Neil Abram Hatford. I have been since I turned six.”

“Neil,” Andrew’s hand tugged on the collar of his shirt. “I’m not going to let her hurt you.”

“You’re leading her _right to me.”_

Neil watched as Andrew drew out a lighter from his pocket, screwing open the jar. The salt crystals crumbled: Andrew lit a scroll from his desk on fire and shoved it into the glass mason. Neil watched in disbelief as the dried leaves burned and shrivelled, the chunk of skin melting into nothing but bubbling, ashy goop. 

“Not anymore,” he said, calmly. 

“She’ll kill you too,” Neil whispered. 

Andrew turned back to him and carefully pushed the hair out of Neil’s eyes. “She’s not going to hurt anyone, ever again. Do you understand? Stand by me and I’ll have your back.”

“What about you? Who has your back?” 

Andrew looked at him, perplexed. 

Neil stepped closer. “I came here. I caused this mess. Let me help fix it.”

“You’re an idiot,” Andrew managed, clearing his throat and looking away. It wasn’t an outright rejection of Neil’s help, which he supposed would have to be enough. 

*

It all came to fruition approximately a week later. It had been both the longest and shortest week of Andrew’s life, spending almost all of his time with Neil and ultimately falling head-over-heels for him. 

He supposed fate had found him the man who’d break down his walls on purpose but it was still disconcerting to learn how _right_ Neil was. For Andrew. 

He let Kevin prattle on about his endeavours, only occasionally antagonising him for Andrew’s benefit. He’d always send Andrew a little knowing smile when he said something that’d send Kevin into a tizzy, and it never failed to make his heart rate spike. Something about his pink lips and blue eyes and constellation freckles and his layered soul ensnared Andrew from the very start and drew him closer, inevitably closer, till he felt like threading his fingers through Neil’s hair, drawing his head to his chest and never letting him go. 

The shadows under Neil’s eyes grew more prominent as the week wore on. When Andrew’s asked, Neil waved him off, mumbling “Nightmares,” under his breath. This woman was truly haunting Neil in a way Andrew couldn’t fathom, but he didn’t know how he could help. Promises of safety weren’t enough to convince Neil he shouldn’t book it and run, but Andrew didn’t want to disclose his need for Neil to stay. That would be opening himself to vulnerability too soon and on a whim rather than with calculated purpose. 

The following Wednesday evening was a full moon. Renee shuttered herself inside and let Allison hold her every full moon, as her necromancer magic became more unstable and unpredictable. It always did. 

What Andrew didn’t expect was Neil’s own reluctance to leave his inn room on the full moon. Andrew found himself outside the door, wondering if Neil would let him in. 

Kevin found him stood outside Neil’s room and shook his head. “He won’t let you in.”

“What’s so bad about the full moon for him?”

Kevin shrugged, distracted. “You don’t have to be a fully realised necromancer to have it in your blood. You two have been together often, this week. I knew you’d work well together.”

  
Andrew narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?” 

Neil’s door was wrenched open, effectively putting a stopper in Kevin’s incriminating conversation. Neil was already turned away, hood pulled up over his hair. 

“You alright?” Kevin remarked, like someone who’d seen this a dozen and a half times before.

“Fine,” Neil managed. “Andrew only.”

Kevin rolled his eyes but stayed put, waving Andrew goodbye as he stepped through the precipice of Neil’s room. 

For all the time they had spent together—out walking, at the lake, in the shop, downstairs in the pub, in the book store—Andrew had never been to Neil’s room. He supposed Neil had never been to Andrew’s home, either, but this was infinitely more intimate. This was Neil’s bedroom, with his rumpled sheets and sparing amount of clothes folded away in the wardrobe. 

“I think you have some explaining to do,” Andrew advised, hooking his thumbs into his pockets. When Neil gestured for him to sit, he did, perched on the edge of Neil’s bed. 

Neil slumped down next to him, hood still pulled over his head, shoulders slouched. 

“The only one who knows everything is Kevin,” he croaked. “It’s a long story.”

Andrew knotted his fingers in Neil’s sleeve. “We have time.” 

Slowly, Neil nodded. He took a deep breath and began. 

“My mum ran away from her family as a teen when she fell in love with a man, a few years older than her. They were both occultists. Mum was very skilled in transfiguration, whilst my father—well.” Neil sighed. 

“The Wesninskis are a long, long line of necromancers. They’re elitists and lead little cults, where the people who follow them are loyal until death. Necromancy is always a disturbing and cruel art form, but Wesninskis take just as much pleasure out of the killing as they do the reviving. My father was not a good man. The scar on my shoulder is the only one my mother ever left permanently, seeing as she wanted to get rid of my Wesninski branding as soon as we abdicated from his family. 

“That was when I was six. It was clear I didn’t show any signs of my father’s necromancing abilities, though my gift was as rare as it was invasive. He didn’t care. I was a first-born son who had failed, so he scorned us. My mother scalped the branding off the both of us and we fled. 

“Kayleigh Day was the only member of my mum’s distant relatives who would forgive Mary for running away, and Kevin and I had already met when we were younger, so we met up. Kayleigh died soon after, leaving Kevin with Wymack and sending my mum into a paranoid spiral. We never stayed anywhere for too long and she would change our appearances so often it was hard to remember what I actually looked like. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that my father decided to catch up with us and reclaim some of the artefacts Mum had stolen to give us a financial ledge. He half-completed a curse on her skin, and two weeks later, finished the job. 

“I went to Kevin immediately, though I knew that my father was still looking for me. I had no money, no artefacts and almost no family left, but he still wanted me dead. I left Palmetto soon after I arrived out of fear.

“From then I began to refine my abilities. What was once the ability to hold an inanimate object and recite its origins and ownership and hidden truths turned into being able to divine the truth about people, their characters, their intentions, their pasts. It’s saved my life on more than one occasion.

“I did what I could to stay alive. It took eight years for him to almost get the best of me, when he snatched me away and locked me in a basement. Gave me the rest of these scars. My uncle stormed the place and got rid of him, _finally,_ but told me to scram before my mother’s family started kicking up a fuss. I went back to Kevin, asked him to help me rectify my father’s cruelty, and we’ve spent the last two years backtracking and returning artefacts and bodies to their rightful places.” 

Neil shrugged, still shielded by his hoodie. “That’s it, I suppose.” 

Andrew wasn’t fooled. “Why does the full moon matter if you’re not a necromancer?”

Slowly, Neil rose his head and tilted it towards where Andrew sat beside him. Andrew’s stomach twisted as the sight of Neil’s eyes, glowing like a wolf’s in the darkness. It was a miraculous, ice-blue, as haunting as it was gorgeous. 

“Like Kevin said: it’s still in my blood.” 

Andrew’s fingers came up to brush Neil’s cheekbone, circling back over the shell of Neil’s ear and pushing the hoodie off. 

“You aren’t your father,” Andrew said. “Yes or no?”

“Okay,” Neil whispered, probably already understanding what Andrew’s intentions were. It meant that Andrew’s stomach didn’t lurch as he leaned forward to brush their lips together, softer than he thought he could be. Neil was delicate right now and Andrew didn’t like it: he liked the reckless man who followed the finch and laid beside him under the stars. He liked the man who’d glared at him under the moonlight when he noticed he was being watched.

He was definitely clueless but enthusiastic, still keeping his hands curled into his lap. Andrew had never asked how much Neil knew about Andrew’s history—he assumed he knew everything—but the fact that Andrew didn’t have to police Neil on his boundaries only made his heart flutter. 

Andrew pulled back. “We’re not doing this. Not when you’re in a state.”

“I’m fine—“

Andrew pinched Neil’s lips together lightly. His smile was sheepish. When Andrew let go, he let his hand curl against Neil’s cheek, watching as Neil leaned into it. 

“Stay?” Neil whispered, looking at Andrew like he was everything. 

Andrew would’ve been kidding himself if he’d said he didn’t want to. 

*

Neil kept his hands in his pockets as they walked down the street, side-by-side. Andrew glowed in the dewy morning light, and Neil liked the way his hair was a little mussed by Neil’s pillow. They hadn’t fallen asleep, but they hadn’t kissed again either, trading little stories in careful whispers as Andrew curled his fingers through Neil’s hair. He told Neil about his first vision when he help Kevin’s letter, what he saw when he and Neil had first brushed fingers. In return, Neil told him about what the sign outside his shop had shown and anecdotes about him and Kevin.

It was a crisp morning: the fogginess in his head had cleared when the moon had sunk below the horizon, giving him full autonomy over his limbs once more and a clear-enough mind to understand the weight of what’d happened overnight. 

He’d have to tell Abby he’d changed his mind. And then he’d have to tell Andrew the truth of his plans. 

For now, he supposed it was alright to just be. 

Andrew’s hand brushed alongside his: the physical touch had little sparks firing all over his skin, making him shiver. When Andrew’s pinky-finger laced through with his, he let his eyes flutter shut as they walked. 

He saw Andrew, sitting beside the couch with Betsy as they worked over a small scrying bowl. He saw Andrew and Renee as young teenagers, climbing trees. Andrew would never get very far. He saw Andrew, stood outside an eclectic, rotting house, as Betsy walked up to him and gingerly put her hands on his shoulders and smiled at Andrew’s younger self. He saw Andrew opening Dobson Divination—on his own—for the first time. 

“What are you seeing?” 

Neil opened his eyes slowly. They’d stopped walking, pinkies still interlocked. His cheeks went pink, nudging Andrew’s shoulder. “You were a cute kid.” 

Andrew muttered something incomprehensible, setting back off down the pathway. The tips of his ears were red. 

They arrived at Dobson Divination in good time, with half an hour till the shop was due to open. Neil let Andrew go to unlocked the door, stepping through the threshold with Andrew’s hand on his back. 

The door swung shut, the little bell ringing. 

“Hello, Junior.”

Neil froze.

Lola was just the same as when he’d last seen her, her skin pulled tight and her lipstick cherry red. Neil remembered her with her fur coats and gold rings and little knives tucked into inconspicuous places. Her heels. Boots. Pressing on his throat. A lighter to his cheek, to his hands, to his arms. His entire body convulsed with phantom pains as his mind was thrust back into the past.

“Well, I see you’ve found what I was looking for,” she purred, smile like a knife slit. 

Andrew stepped forward. “Get out of my shop.”

“After all I’ve paid you? That’s theft, Dobson.”

“If I ever see you in Palmetto again, I’ll skin you from head to toe myself. If you ever touch _Neil_ again, I’ll cut off each of your fingers and make a fucking candelabra and put it on my windowsill. Do you understand?”

She just laughed. “You didn’t even realise I’d be here. Your premonitions and divination magic won’t work on me. Nathan protects me, even in undeath.” 

Neil’s stomach bottomed out. “What?”

She stood up off Andrew’s desk and dawdled forward, claw-like nails coming up to both of their chins. Andrew’s self-control was slipping whilst Neil was frozen in terror. “That’s right, Junior. I’m going to take your heart, your skin, your lungs and ribcage, your blood and hair and luminescent little eyeballs and bring your father back to life. It’ll be a family reunion! But, oh!” She grinned. “I forgot. You’ll be dead.”

“I said—“ Andrew pushed in between Lola and Neil. “—that if you hurt him—touch him, so much as _look_ at him, I’ll kill you.”

“So quick to be loyal, AJ.” Lola crooned. That name made Neil wince, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it was the new tension in Andrew’s shoulders. “You didn’t think he would stay, would you? Soulmates, aren’t you? So cute.” She drew out a large book. Neil’s stomach dropped as she began to read out the notes, written in Abby’s scrawl. 

“To purchase: one lamb’s tail, two poisonous toads, or two vials of concentrated toad poison (must be fresh), poison ivy and black onyx, finely ground. Neil’s height: 5’3”, meaning dosage of 40mL for raven’s blood, to be taken after ritual concludes. Also to purchase: 24 charcoal wax candles and blade sharpener for arthame.” 

Lola looked up from the book with a smile. “Do you want to know what this is for?” 

Andrew just looked at her. Neil wanted to grab it, to fling it out the window and into the abyss. Instead, he said: “It’s not true. It’s not _true.”_

“‘Soul-severing techniques’,” Lola announced. “Specifically: ‘Enchantment to sever one soul from another’.”

Andrew looked to Neil, eyes boring into his skull. Neil swallowed the bile at the back of his throat, standing straighter. 

“Fuck you,” he said, decidedly. “I won’t be a pawn in your game any longer. Any last words?”

She just laughed. “You can’t kill me. Your father made it so that no one can.”

Neil let his father’s grin curl upwards, stepping closer. “You sure? I am my father’s son, after all.”

Her smile faltered. 

“I’ve got his blood running through my veins. Considering he’s dead, and I’m alive…wouldn’t that make me the overseer of all his remaining conjurings and spells?” He let his head cock to one side. “It was why he wanted me dead, after all. A liability, I was. A Wesninski heir, unchecked and untrackable. You don’t need me dead: you just need my right hand and an eye. But if I were to be still alive if you brought him back, you would have failed your duty. You would be absconded from your lowly position as my father’s whore.”

Her hands were shaking. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Why do you think I spent the past two years running around, undoing all that he’d ruined? I’m the only one who can do it. Just because I wasn’t taught by him doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about, Lola.” 

“He should have strangled you the minute you were _born,”_ she snapped.

Neil stepped even closer: from Andrew’s offering hand, he took the knife. 

“You’ll regret this,” she snarled, edging back into Andrew’s desk. “You can’t kill me. I’m the only one who can help you bring your mother back.”

Neil just shook his head. “You’re ten years too late to entice me with something like that. Goodbye, Lola.” 

Before Neil could attempt a stab in her direction, she snatched Andrew by the hair and pulled him back against her chest. A double-edged sgian rested against Andrew’s throat. Neil froze. 

“Now it’s your turn, Junior,” she panted. “Show your loyalty. Is it to yourself, or to the man you have lied to? Who hates you? Who—!” She let out an infernal scream, yanking backwards. The knife came up and slashed across Andrew’s face, who barely reacted, instead stepping out of Lola’s reach. 

Lola looked at the knife in her ribs in disbelief. “But—how?”

“Did you think he went through with the ritual? Well,” Andrew said, blood gushing down his face. Only his strained voice proved he was in pain. Neil stared, incredulous. “It seems that he found somewhere to call home instead. Thus, we are still one and the same. Goodbye, Lola.” 

With that, he yanked the knife out of its wound. She dropped to the ground, twitching. 

Neil immediately cupped Andrew’s bloody face in his two hands. “Thank you,” he said, lip quivering. “You were _amazing_.”

Andrew just let out a disdained huff. 

*

_Two and a half weeks later,_

“There,” Abby said gently, the last of the stitches pulled out. Or, the last of the temporary stitches. Andrew’s right eye would be forever sewn shut, see as she’d slashed right through his eyeball. “All done.”

Neil covered Andrew’s hand with his own where it was pressed on the bench, gripping the edge. Andrew looked at him with his one eye, glaring. 

“Staring,” he muttered as Abby moved away to mix a salve. 

“I like it,” Neil answered honestly. 

“The eye, or being obnoxious?”

“Will you wear a patch?”

“I will push you off this bench.”

“Boys,” Abby apprehended, marching back over with a spatula and a bowl of honey, lemon and thyme. Neil grinned sheepishly. 

When Andrew’s bandage was reapplied, he slid off the bench. Neil stood up but the weight in his backpack almost had him falling backwards: he’d almost forgotten to give the book back. 

“Before I forget,” he said, pulling it out. Abby’s frown twitched. 

“I’m guessing you don’t need it anymore?” She looked between Andrew and Neil with an arched brow. 

Neil ducked his head, his cheeks turning red as he shook his head quickly. 

Abby just ruffled his hair. “I knew you’d come around.”

Andrew lead Neil by the wrist out of the apotheca and onto the street. It was only a few minutes down Perimeter Drive: patrons of the little shops and stalls (it was a Sunday) waved and said hello as they passed. Renee tucked a daffodil behind Neil’s ear as they passed. 

  
When they finally arrived at the shop, Neil glanced at the sign and smiled. 

_finder's keepers_

“What does it say for you?” Neil nudged Andrew’s shoulder, gesturing to the sign. 

Andrew glanced at it, then snorted. “Indifference will kill you.”

Neil rolled his eyes. “You were never indifferent.”

“I tried to be,” Andrew admitted. “Didn’t work.”

“Can I kiss you?” Neil blurted out, fingers curled into the sleeves of his jacket. 

If Neil hadn’t been watching so closely, he probably would’ve missed the minute, upwards twitch of the corner of Andrew’s lips. The tiniest, tiniest hint of a smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Underneath the signpost for _Dobson Divination_ , two young soulmates kissed, all their jagged edges fitting together perfectly. For one, it was like coming back to a home he didn’t think he’d find, and for the other it was like coming back to a home he didn’t think he’d be able to keep. 

From the windowsill above them, the finch sang. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is my aftg exchange gift for @patroklosandachilles (tumblr)!! i hope you liked it!! sorry i couldn't post it sooner (and also sorry if it's poorly edited!!), i hope this was fluffy enough!! im bad at fluff oops someone always ends up getting stabbed


End file.
